MUKS AND THE THREE-WHEELER TEMPO

THOSE WERE THE DAYS

Air Force Station, Tezpur, bred the by-word of that era in the corporeal shape of a Sqn Ldr Parsuraman. His aim in life was very simple: to stay drunk. An excellent Met Offr, he was at his sharpest at the half-bottle stage. A fair Bridge player, he would carry on playing till he toppled off the chair. He would then request one of us to get him up, put him on the hazily lit road and point him towards our billets. He would then weave his way towards the billets, turn right as the first billet appeared and stick his left arm out horizontally, something rather unusual even for Bacchus. Later, he confessed ; His arm was to impact the pillars of the verandah of our living-in barracks and he would count each hit. At the count of nine, he would turn hard right and fall forwards, collapsing onto his bed, put in place precisely by his orderly. He never missed.

The Base  Ops  Offr  would double as  the Duty  Offr.  No vehicle was provided for the rounds, as they were far too noisy. One borrowed a pal’s 2-wheeler to go about his checks. Dark nights were terrifying, with stories of Hyenas and Jackals abounding. The darkness was Stygian, with dense vegetation , Sal Forest et al . Dinky Shaheed, RIP,  was into  his 4^th large when somebody reminded him of his duty. He sprinted out, climbed aboard the nearest Lamby and set off. Luckily, all turns into the technical area were left turns. Having got in, he discovered to his horror that the scooter could not turn right ! Just his luck, that night was the Hyenas night out. He went on the wagon for one full month. 

       The Army ran the RSI Club in town and we would drop in unannounced aiming to get into a scrap. We would drive down in Tushar Sen's Hindustan, which had no doors. Good fun, the drive as well as the scrap. The Army didn't find anything funny, but when did an Army Pongo have a sense of humour? The crowning glory was the hijack of a Tempo, which had a pull/push rod system for Gears. I have never yet seen anybody who could get into reverse gear from the top apart from young Mukho, who promptly overturned, luckily without injury. When you next meet Air Marshal Sumit 'Chunks' Mukerji, now retired, ask him about L the B.

THE PEEPAL TREE, ACCIDENTS GALORE AND BIKES

                                     KANG'S BULLET

I was in Tezpur from January 1973 to end March 74.  A free for all station; anything went. The monthly task was 320 hrs on the T-77 and 60 on the trainer. We had to finish flying by the 20^th of the month, so that the station could stand down for 10 full days. With three Sqns of Migs it was a mad rush to get airborne and fly your four details by 1300 hrs. All this with nary an accident. The local  menace  was CO 4 Sqn, who would  taxy out  on  his own, joining up with any formation carrying out tyre checks ,etc, especially  a 4 aircraft formation. He would make them run rings with his peccadilloes. 4 Sqn was very good in Chess, as he was very fond of the game. Bad weather? Chess board out. This overly laissez faire approach told in the end when 4 Sqn had a spate of 5 accidents, all fortunately ending in safe ejections. Their Flt Cdr and a very senior pilot got lost in very heavy clouding, from 300 feet up to 20,000, as the navigational aids on their aircraft failed. They ejected near Silchar, 325 km away. He himself ejected when burning up fuel in Afterburner after experiencing engine problems (oil pressure failure) warranting immediate landing. He was removed from Command but was reinstated as all his men went into a Hartal. Ironically, he rose to become Inspector General, in charge of Flight Safety !  

        One offr from 30 Sqn, a Flt Lt TS Kang had just purchased a gleaming red Bullet motorcycle and brought  it himself from MaDras, now Chennai. His stories of travel on a goods train were both amusing and terrifying. He loved his bike so much that he would tune it twice a day, keeping many of them awake till midnight . The icons of old, viz, Irfan Haidari, PPK Naidu, S Bhalla, Yezdi Irani and their ilk, warned him to desist. But, love is indeed a many splendoured thing and Kang decided to take them on. One midnight, the gang got together and silently lifted the Bike to the base of a massive Peepal tree and hoisted it 50 odd feet up, invisible to the ignorant. Kang was put through a grilling time, with Police dogs thrown in, 3^rd degree questioning of the orderlies, et al. There was a slightly dodgy moment when one dog headed for the tree; but only to lift his left hind leg. Good training, what? One week later, the bike was as silently restored, to the paeans of unbridled ecstasy of a chastened owner. Tragically, Kang was killed in a road accident on the same bike in Pune. May he rest in peace.

       The IAC dispersal was opposite the ATC. The hostesses then were very pretty and this led Yezdi Irani, the Operations Adjutant [Flying] to phone in a bomb threat. The intention was to get to know the Hostesses better. Yezdi rushed out to the F-27 as the passengers were now back in their waiting room. Alas, the Stn CDr reached first and ordered him to look after the Pilots! Guess who looked after the Air Hostesses?

       CTO was a Wg CDr Mukhodadhya, who spent his spare time rearing chicken, not for eating though. He once went on two weeks leave, handing over care of the birds to his neighbour, a Flt Lt MS Dalhi. A farewell was in the offing and 4 Sqn was tasked with the Food.  As their policy was ‘Drink before eat’, they forgot to set up the Menu. Chicken was a rare delicacy and when Denzil Uncle realised what had happened, he organised a quiet nocturnal abduction, intending to replace the previous night’s fowl with imported ones. The CTO was livid with rage on return and this was the probable cause of his raising the undercarriage on a MiG-21 during a ground run!  Incidentally, he is the only  Officer of any branch to have ever repeated this feat.

       Accidents do happen and that era was no different except that were no limitations, no irrelevant stuff . His course-mate, Plt Offr Tanwar ejected at 1030 hrs. He was recovered by 1230 hrs and sent up to fly a repeat sortie at 1600 hrs. He then debriefed all of us on his misadventure. His primary lesson was “I will never fly again without my cigarettes.” At all of 5’2”, he thought that getting out of the 8’ Elephant grass was far more terrifying than the ejection. He flew 17 sorties before Air HQ stopped his flying altogether. He moved over to Jorhat, to fly Tpt ac.

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SINDHIS TO THE FORE

The Avaricious Sindhi

I may be the only bloke from the IAF to induct two types of aircraft. It often requires you to go abroad and fly the purchased aircraft back to India. I would like to add a story about petty selfishness here.It concerns a Sindhi and an equally greedy Punjabi businessman.

My team leader in France for the induction of the French company, AMBDA or Marcel Dassault’s latest production, the Mirage-2000, was a Wing Commander and the second in command a senior Squadron Leader, due for promotion within a month of returning to India. We were to ferry quite a few aircraft to India. After the first ferry, the two honchos submitted a Ferry Report and added a paragraph  in fine print that all ferries were to be led only by Wing Commanders (Wg Cdr), i.e., themselves. Moreover, the Wg Cdr not ferrying the aircraft was to go as the leader of the advance party−four weeks in advance−in order to sign the taking over documentation and return with the Ferry team in the supporting Transport aircraft, an IL-76. Thus both these selfish chaps were overseas, one way or another. This clause was deleted after the last ferry. Greed has no bounds and you will see that regularly.

This same Wing Commander was selected as the Air Attache to Ukraine while another Wing Commander was selected for Sweden. Using his beguiling charm, this scheming Wing Commander managed to persuade his erstwhile Directing Staff at the Defence Services Staff College, Wellington, Ootacamund to change over the two names so that he could go to Sweden while the deserving Wg Cdr was shunted off to Ukraine.

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Marketing Mojo for Small Business

Don’t Worry, Be Happy: It’s Good For Your Business!

As a small business owner, sometimes it’s hard not to feel a little overwhelmed, or to get run down by the responsibilities of being the boss. So it’s important to try to make sure you pay attention to your happiness tank and take steps to keep it full. And if you can’t do it for yourself – do it for your business.
Research has shown that happier people are more productive, more engaged in their work, and are better employees all around. According to an article in The Guardian, a team of economists led by Andrew Oswald has shown this in a recent study. They stated that “we find that human happiness has large and positive causal effects on productivity, positive emotions appear to invigorate human beings, while negative emotions have the opposite effect.”
With that in mind, it’s clear how your own mental state can have big implications for your business. What can you do to ensure your happiness and satisfaction as an entrepreneur? Mashable has some ideas. A recent article published on American Express OPEN Forum, suggests these 5 methods for How To Be Happy as a Digital Entrepreneur. While these are specifically for people in the digital space, we think they’re pretty widely applicable. You can check out the full Mashable article for all the details, but in the interest of time management, here’s a quick rundown:
1. Don’t Be Afraid of Failure
2. Don’t Get Bogged Down in the Negative
3. Silence the Inner Critic
4. Make Time for Yourself
5. Remember Why You Started Your Business

Embedded from Marketing Mojo for Small Business
Posted by Sarah in How To / Tips on April 15, 2013